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Hollandaise had quite literally stumbled into something one day. Something interesting. Something open. Trapped in her daydreams (really, this section of the school desperately needed flowers and wouldn't a vine look just right crawling out of those artfully placed cracks?), she had leaned against a wall, fingers idly tapping. Suddenly, the wall shifted, moving more creakily than the eldest warder. For Hollandaise, whose reflexes were not the quickest, this meant she tumbled into that opening.

It was dark, and musty and she thought she heard the spider's tiny shrieks of alarm. Web-covered, she hauled herself up and out and pulled the secret door nearly closed, leaving it only open enough for her fingers to rest in the crack. She blinked for several long seconds before snapping a picture with her eyePhone. After careful consideration, she sent it to a certain ghoul who seemed very sensible.

Hollandaise leaned against the wall (not against the weird door), and texted back. She was hoping Aisha could come before someone else saw the passageway. Deszeld wouldn't have fit inside it either. Sometimes, she thought grudgingly, being smaller was alright.

"Yeah... I'm not fond of fire. Trees and all-" The leaves in her hair seemed to tremble ever so slightly. "Your loa should be enough. If not... ah, I'm not adverse to just some fumbling around in the dark." Hollandaise laughed, a small, breathless thing. She was excited to explore. The Elders back home encouraged such pursuits - a know your own forest sort of thing. Amityville, in a way, was her new forest. She made a face (unbecoming of a warder, she was sure) and ducked back into the opening. A rush of cool air greeted her; the sound of bugs skittering across unused walkways echoed.

"Come; I wonder where this leads." There were stairs that went down and down and down and a sort of dusty disuse had settled over everything. Hollandaise shivered in the dim gloom. Alcoves dotted along the stairs, most seemed to be empty, some glittered fitfully. But the darkness grew the longer they walked.

"Maybe I should have had you go first, Aisha."

She flinched when Aisha touched her - the ingrained reaction a result of many lectures (horror stories) from Gwynthirikrenori'kelyr about how creeple would want to pull out the flowers that grew along her shoulders. She knew such stories were not true, likely not true, but it could happen by accident, And, by accident or not, it would still be painful unless they were very, very gentle. She held herself very stillas the ghoul squeezed past. But when Aisha breathed out an orange glow, she gave a creaky hum of appreciation.

"I knew you were a good ghoul to ask along. You seem very sensible. Though, I wish I could do something like that-" She stumbled and caught herself against the wall, palm scraping. "This door suddenly opened as I was reclining against it; I nearly fell through." Following Aisha's example, she pulled out her own phone, the blue-white light contrasting oddly with the loa's orange. "What do you think this passage was used for perhaps smuggling? Or illicit lovers' trysts?" Hollandaise's voice trailed off for a moment and it was clear she was lost briefly in thought. Or rather, daydream. A young monster, loving someone forbidden (exactly who escape her at the moment; Hollandaise was fanciful, but not as creative as she could be)....

"Lover's meetings...." she murmured, then looked up, away from her feet. A fork yawned in front of them. Both sides looked the same. That is, they were both dark and gloomy and spider's webs were strung across the paths. "left or right?"

Hollandaise waved off Aisha's apology. Her flinching was her own problem and not the fault of any other. She smiled at that silly little rhyme though, the corners of her eyes crinkling. "Have you told that to a werewolf yet?" As poetry went, it was simplistic, a child's stringing together of words.

"Hmmm," she paused, running her hand along the dusty wall. "Not romantic, I suppose. A dreamer? I like making up stories about other creeple. What ifs, maybes, guessing their secrets. Why; are you secretly as hopeless romantic who longs for some boil to love you just so-?" Hollandaise laughed lightly, her hand pressing heavily against a dip in the wall.

Something poked her. With a small frown, she brought her eyePhone near the protrusion, It was a sort of shiny attributed to metallic things. Her fingers picked at the dust, the dirt packed around it. "Aisha, look." Inside the wall was a ring, silver with a piece of amber in it. "Do you think someone stashed it here? I......" Hollandaise wanted it, so her fingers tugged and tugged.

"Thanks," Hollandaise murmured at they pulled the ring free. It was dirty and tarnished and very, very old, but it fit her finger. "Hah, now I'm part of the story, whatever it is." She turned to Aisha, the blue glow from her phone casting funny shadows across her hoodie.

"You'll get a boilfriend, Aisha. You're pretty and sensible and while you aren't green, I'm sure you could have your pick of creeple. In fact," her eyes narrowed. "Do you have a boil you have your eye on?" Hollandaise loved stories and love was the most most dramatic story. She idly kicked a rock down the passageway.

If Hollandaise had been drinking anything, she would've choked on it. As it was, she had a brief moment where she simply choked on air. "Deszeld? No, no! She's large and green and beautiful - she is simply the first friend I've made here. Although sometimes she stands very very close to me and I do not like that." She frowned and tapped the wall thoughtfully, mentally cataloging the creeple she'd met. Van was energetic and a little strange, Zar was an absolute tool, Amarus might be redeemable... she sighed. "I haven't even met any prospects for any sort of love thing. Besides, I doubt that a ghoul or boilfriend would be appreciated by the elders back home. It's not a part of school as far as my elders are concerned." They would consider time spent on such things as a waste of resources and energy.

"Do your parents want you to find a lover? We should get you one, Aisha," Hollandaise laughed lightly, stars in her eyes. She moved around the table to stare at the lantern, touching it gently. The paper was glanced at curiously. "Hmm, shame but I can't make out any words on it..."

Hollandaise blew out a creaking breath. "Don't be sorry - I know. She's everywhere! But most of the time, I don't think I mind it... I guess." Her fingers skimmed once more over the papers, tips tracing letters that weren't quite there. The warm electric light was startlingly different from the faint blue of their phones and the soft orange of Aisha's loa.

"Well," she said evenly, "if you think you're ready - you are. Do you not like Jeff? In m-" my "-the forest, every new warder is raised by all the older ones. They do not really have things like boilfriends and ghoulfriends. It is strange." Slowly, she began to move out of the room., Hollandaise wondered if they would somehow get terribly lost down here - they would become one of the stories she enjoyed.